Let's write!

Write a couple of paragraphs describing rain. How rainy it is is up to you; it can be a drizzle or a hurricane. How it's being viewed or sensed is up to you; it could be a scene from a window, or the POV character could be standing in it getting drenched.

However, don't include any character actions that don't involve the rain, so no sipping coffee, no thinking about things, and especially no dialogue. Just describe the rain, either how the POV character is experiencing it or how the narrator is describing it (or both).

Today's challenge: Write down an idea, for later work.

It can be any idea, anything that you've thought about possibly writing. It might be an idea for a single scene, or a single piece of dialogue, or it could be an idea for a full story. It might be notes on the basic idea and possible ways you might change it.

The point is to get it down on paper or on your computer, with enough detail that you won't come back to it in a month and wonder what in the world you were talking about.

And remember, this is writing down the idea, not actually writing the scene/story itself. That's for later.

Quote prompt today:

"History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it." -- Winston Churchill

Choose two characters, preferably two that know each other in canon. They are together in a private place, such as walking down a forest path, watching TV in a room and no one else is within hearing range, or driving somewhere in a car. One of them takes the opportunity to talk to the other about something private. It could be good (e.g., they want to tell them a good secret like they just bought an engagement ring; they want to compliment the other; they want to share good gossip about someone else) or it could be bad (e.g., they want to chastise them about something bad they did; they want to share bad gossip about someone else) or even neutral (e.g. they want to talk to them about something that's troubling them).

Write that. Bonus points for not choosing the easiest-to-write conversation.

Write a scene in which one character is telling the other character something, and the second character does not believe them but doesn't want to say so directly. The catch? Don't communicate the second character's disbelief directly to the reader via their thoughts. Instead, only communicate their disbelief through their dialogue, expressions, or actions.

There are lots of ways the second character could react that doesn't contradict the first character but clearly shows that they don't believe them. They may glance away and clam up, or otherwise try to hide their expression. They may try to change the subject. They may pretend they didn't hear.

I went back and started reading my fills for this comm back in 2022, and this is the one I've chosen to critique:

https://tenminutesaday.dreamwidth.org/24874.html

The challenge was to take a scene from DW but write it using a different Doctor and companion pair, keeping in mind that with the new characters, with their personalities and goals different from the original, the scene might turn out completely different. I decided to rewrite the scene from "Enlightenment" in which the Guardians offer the prize to Turlough, with Rose and Ten substituted in for Turlough and Five.

In the original scene, the prize for winning the race was enlightenment, and when none of the Eternal teams win the race, the Guardians offer part of the prize to Turlough for helping -- a huge perfect diamond. Turlough had up until now been working for the Black Guardian, so the Black Guardian said that the prize was actually his, but he (Turlough) could take the prize if he gave up something of equal value, in this case, the Doctor. After consideration, Turlough chose to give the diamond to the Black Guardian, and the Doctor said that enlightenment wasn't the diamond, it was the choice. In other words, Turlough learned something about himself -- that though he was greedy by nature, he valued his friend above all the money in the universe -- through the choice he made.

That's what I tried to capture in the scene I wrote. Rose was a good stand-in for Turlough, as a teenager without much self-awareness and a healthy dose of greed, jealousy, and desperation. One of the things I think I did well in the scene was let Rose be tempted by the jewel but then try to take the high road and say that she doesn't need it.

The thing that I didn't do well was the subsequent part: I didn't make it clear what Rose was thinking when she finally made her choice, and thus the ending, where the Doctor walks off saying that "Enlightenment was the choice," was robbed of its meaning.

Unlike with Turlough, the Guardians don't make Rose choose between two things. Instead, the Guardians present Rose a choice of what her prize could be, and she decides she wants security, in specific, she wants to be secure in the knowledge that the Doctor loves her and will stay with her forever. After all, that's all she cared about in series 2. However, I was trying to be subtle with that and didn't make that clear. The only indication of this is the Black Guardian saying, "You wish to be assured of something," and that's it. It really needed to be stated outright that Rose thought that the crystal would make the Doctor love her.

Without that knowledge, the ending doesn't have any impact. The Doctor walks off because now he knows that all Rose really cares about is trying to own him, but that didn't come across at all.

I think the piece needed more of Rose's direct thoughts, especially right after the Black Guardian says the word "security". Maybe something like:

----
Rose bit her lip. Security? Could this jewel answer all my questions? Could it finally make him say...?
----

Even just that much could make the story so much clearer.